Helio Castroneves secured a fiftieth career pole position in the Verizon IndyCar Series and his third of 2017 as Team Penske once again were the dominant team at Road America, locking out the top four places for the third time in four sessions.
The Fast Six Shootout around the Elkhart Lake circuit turned into a battle to see which of the Penske drivers could take pole position, and Castroneves delivered when it mattered, taking top spot with a lap of 1:41.3007s.
It looked as though Will Power had done enough to take the spot at the front of the field but the Australian fell just 0.0604 seconds short, with the 2016 Road America winner being forced to settle for second place on the grid.
Behind them, Josef Newgarden and Simon Pagenaud will share row two, 0.3601 seconds and 1.378 seconds down on Castroneves, but well clear of the leading non-Penske machine of Chip Ganassi Racing’s Scott Dixon.
Dixon set a best time of 1:42.9308s during the Fast Six Shootout, which was 1.6301 seconds slower than the pole time, while Graham Rahal will start sixth for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing.
Just missing out on advancing to the Fast Six Shootout was Max Chilton, with the Briton starting seventh for Chip Ganassi Racing, and he will be joined on row four by Andretti Autosport’s Marco Andretti, who equalled his best qualifying performance of the season.
James Hinchcliffe will start ninth for Schmidt Peterson Motorsport ahead of Charlie Kimball of Chip Ganassi Racing, while the Fast Twelve session was rounded out by rookie Ed Jones of Dale Coyne Racing and Andretti Autosport’s Ryan Hunter-Reay.
Road America Qualifying Result
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